In one of my previous blogs, I talked about putting out some information talking about the different usages of religion and spirituality. At this point, I have found ten (instead of fifteen) definitions. Nine of them are from the book listed below. These are pretty lengthy definitions and explanations. If you are unfamiliar with the terrain of religion then this will put you several steps ahead of many people when it comes to understanding what people mean when they say religion. It is not always something to shriek, shy away from, or put your guard up against when it is brought up in discussions. Nor does it mean you need to defend your understanding against people trying to proselytize (although that surely does happen.) So when someone says they are religious and want to talk about their experiences, understanding, etc. this allows you to open up to the idea of contextual understanding (or understanding the foundation of that persons worldview) so that you can genuinely learn from someone elses way of relating to reality, even if you don't agree completely with what is being said. For you youngins' out there...it is ok to say you are religious! As long as you understand what you mean when you say it. Spiritual works just fine, but it does tend to be more elusive as far as what it means (something I want to work with later on in regards to Mask Shamanism.)
Since this is an incredibly lengthy blog, I will hold off on my posts for awhile regarding how mask Shamanism works with some definitions and doesn't with others. All of these blogs are aimed towards bringing a little more insight about this practice outside of the experiential aspect. I will inevitably mess up on how I say something and will have to clarify what is being said. It takes time, so please be patient. : )
The book that this passage is from is an incredible book to read. You will probably see me referring to it every now and then when I talk about certain topics. Since the chapter is very short, I decided to use nearly all of it. If you don't understand exactly what he means, that is ok. I spent a year studying every one of his books from start to finish (it is probably enough to have a degree. In fact, there are a small number of universities out there that are offering programs learning specifically the AQAL/Integral theory.) He uses a lot of language that can take awhile to understand and to see the overall picture of what he is getting at.
A Socialable God - Ken Wilber pgs. 98-104
One of the great difficulties in discussing religion-its sociology, its possible universality, its "civil" dimensions-is that it is not an "it." In my opinion, "it" has at least a dozen different, major, largely exclusive meanings, and unfortunately these are not always, not even usually, distinguished in the literature. Let me point out some of the ways we can (and do) use the word "religion," and what I believe is actually behind each usage. My point will be that each of these usages is legitimate enough-we are free to define religion any way we wish-but we must specify that meaning. For what wel will find is that many scholars have several implicit but often very different definitions in mind, and they slip between these usages in a way that generates pseudo-conclusions. I will number these religious definitions and subsequently refer to them as rd-1, rd-2, and so on.
1. Religion as non-rational engagement. This has both positive and negative connotations. To theologians, it means that religion deals with valid but nonrational aspects of existence, such as faith, grace, transcendance, satori, and such. To positivists, it means religion is nonvalid knowledge; it might be "meaningful" to humans in an emotional way, but it is not real cognition.
This usage is often reflected in common sense. Most people would intuitively say that magic-voodoo is a type of religion, however primitive, and that mythic gods and goddesses are definately religious, although maybe not very "serious." They would also say that what yogis, saints, and sages do is certainly religious. But science-rationality? That is not religious. This overall usage says that religion is not so much something done on all levels but rather on particular levels, and specifically, those that are not rational-scientific per se. If you are pro-religion, then this definition implies that religion is something you can grow into; if con, something you hope to outgrow. In either case, it is nonrational; it belongs to or at least originates in a dimension that is other to reason.
2. Religion as extremely meaningful or integrative engagement. This usage says religion is not something that occurs on specific nonrational dimensions or levels but is a particular functional activity on any given level, an activity seeking meaning, integration, etc. In my opinion, this usage actually reflect's each level's search for mana-the search for meaning, truth, integrity, stability, and subject-object relationship (exchange.) Since mana'translation, as we have seen, must occur on each level of structural organization, then whether that level appears "religious" or "secular" does not matter; it is religious, or mana-searching, by this definition.
This usage is also reflected in common sense. Thus, even the typical individual who initially says that myths, saints, sages, and such are religious but science is not, will usually understand exactly what you mean when you say, "Science was Einstein's religion." Star Trek fans say, "logic is Spock's religion." Here, even purely rational endeavors are said to be religious, because they are, like all levels, in search for their phase specific mana, and this mana-search-on whatever level, high or low, sacred or secular-is natively understood as religion.
Notice that, although both rd-1 and rd-2 are acceptable usages, they are nonetheless quite different, almost contradictory, and unless we specify which we mean, certain paradoxes and spurious conclusions will result. For instance, rd-1 denies secular religion, rd-2 demands it; rd-1 denies science as religion, rd-2 says it is (or can be.) Both are acceptable, as long as we understand that behind the one word "religions" there are different functions. Oftentimes common sense will use both of these meanings without specifying them, thus producing a pseudo-paradox. The person might say, "Mr. Jones doesn't go to church; he doesn't believe in religion-money is his religion."
3. Religion as an immortality project. This is using the technical term we earlier introduced, but the actual term itself need not be invoked. The idea is simply that religion is fundamentally a wishful, defensive, compensatory belief, created in order to assuage insecurity/anxiety. This meaning is often applied to theology, but it is also used for rational and secular endeavors, as when Becker says that Marxism is Soviet religion, meaning not just mana-search but death denial. This can occur, as we have seen, on any level, and simply reflects that level's inherent taboo avoidance. In this particular function, science does for the rational ego exactly what myth does for the childish ego and magic does for the infantile ego-helps to veil the apprehension of ultimate and inescapable mortality by providing a belief system to "hang on to." This seems especially true of "scienticians," that is, scientists whose rd-2 religion (mana religion) happens to be science itself. I have found that, when push comes to shove, they will guard thei exclusively rational world view with a quivering passion every bit as charged with hoped-for immortality as that of a shrieking fundamentalist preacher. The point is simply that each level (short of the ultimate) tends to erect some sort of immortality project as part of its necessary defense structures, and this usage of religion simply keys on this particular funtion (although, typically, most of those who use this definition deny that there is any other.)
4. Religion as evolutionary growth. This is a sophisticated concept maintaining that all evolution and history is a process of increasing self-realization, or the overcoming of alienation via the return of spirit to spirit as spirit. Hegel, for instance, or Auribindo. In this sense, religion is actually a term for the transformative drive in general. The religious impuls here means, not searching for meaning, integration, mana or value on a given level, but dying to that level altogether so as to find increasingly higher structures of mana-truth, eventuating in God-Realized Adaptation itself.
5. Religion as fixation/regression. We already discussed this usage; the only thing we need say here is that this meaning differs from rd-1 only in being more specific and always deragotory. Religion is not nonrational, it is prerational, and that exhausts the alternatives. This is standard primitivization theory: religion is childish illusion, magic, myth.
6. Exoteric religion. This generally refers to the lower, outward, and/or preparatory aspects of any religion that has higher, inward, and/or advanced aspects of teaching and practice. It is usually a form of belief system used to invoke or support faith. both being preparatory to esoteric experience and adaptation. If a religion lacks an esoteric dimension altogether, then that religion on the whole is referred to as exoteric (the point of comparison being the esoteric dimensions of other religions altogether.)
7. Esoteric religion. This refers to the higher, inward, and/or advanced aspects of religious practise, with the proviso that such practices culminate in, or at least have as goal, mystical experience.
(For the next two definitions, we need a preliminary explanation. Once an author defines religions, he or she has automatically established some sort of criteria for "more valid" or "less valid" religion, simply because once the function of religion is actually specified, there are always better of worse cases. Now the nature of this "better or worse" depends upon the prior, basic definition the author gives to religion. If rd-1 is used-religions as a nonrational dimension or realm, and in this case it means higher realm-then valid religion, or more valid religion, comes implicitly or explicitly to mean actually contacting those authentic higher realms or levels. On the other hand, if rd-2 is used-religion as search for mana on any level-then valid or more valid religion does not mean experiencing a particular level but finding legitimate mana on one's present level. These are obviously two entirely different meanings of "valid," and it presents a chronic semantic difficulty rarely acknowledged in the literature. I therefore have no choice but to use two different words-"authentic" and "legitimate-to specify these two meanings of valid.)
8. Legitimate religion. This is religion that primarily validates translation; usually by providing "good mana" and helping avoid taboo, that is, providing unity of meaning on the one hand and immortality symbols on the other. If an author (implicitly or explicitly) defines religion as meaningful integration of a given worldview or level (rd-2), then the more integrative religion (within that worldview or level) is implied or defined by the author to be the more valid. In these cases, since we refer to rd-2 as mana religion in general, we refer to its more valid forms as legitimate or "good mana" religion.
A crisis in legitimacy occurs whenever the prevailing mana and immortality symbols fail their integrative and defensive functions. This can occur on the lower levels of mythic-exoteric religions (for example, the Pope's encyclicals on human reproduction, based as they are on Thomistic/Aristotelian biological notions, long outmoded, have lost legitimacy with many people), on the middle levels of rational-secular religion (e.g., the Newtonian paradigm as a world view has lost legitimation) and on the upper levels of mystical religion (e.g. Mahayana Buddhism eventually lost legitimation in India, its place being taken by Shankara's Vedanta.) In each case, the religion in its rd-2 function simply fails to provide meaningful integration, on the one hand, or enough immortality power, on the other, and thus loses its legitimacy, or its capacity to validate translation.
Corollary: "Degree of legitimacy" refers to the relative degree of integration, meaning-value, good mana, ease of functioning, avoidance of taboo, and so forth within any given level. This is a horizontal scale; "more legitimate" means more integrative-meaningful within that level.
9. Authentic religion. This is religion that primarily validates transformation to a particular dimension-level deemed to be most centrally religious. When an author (implicitly or explicitly) defines religion as a particular dimension -level of existence (rd-1), then the religion that more completely or accurately contacts that dimension-level is implied or defined by the author to be the more valid. In those cases, I use the word "authentic" or "more authentic" to indicate "more valid."
A crisis in authenticity occurs whenever a prevailing worldview (or religion) is faced with challenges from a higher-level view. This can occur at any level, whenever a new and higher (or senior) level begins to emerge and itself gain legitimacy. The new world view embodies a new and higher transformative power and thus challenges the old view, not merely as to its legitimacy but as to its very authenticity.
Corollary: "Degree of authenticity" refers to the relative degree of actual transformation delivered by a given religion (or worldview.) This is a vertical scale; "more authentic" means more capable of reaching a higher level (and not merely integrating the present level.)
An author is, of course, free to specify the nature of the centrally religious or higher realm. For myself, it is the psychic, subtle, causal, and ultimate levels of structural organization and relational exchange. It follows that, for myself, authentic religion is any practice leading to a genuine emergence of, and eventual adaptation to, those transpersonal realms (with the further understanding that causal religion is more authentic than subtle, which is more authentic than psychic.) I will occasionallyuse the corollary "degree of authenticity" in a looser sense, as meaning the degree of developmental structuralization in general (e.g., myth is more authentic than magic, reason is more authentic than myth, vision is more authentic than reason, etc.). However, when I refer to authentic religions per se, they are ones that have reached a degree of structuralization at or beyond the superconscient border (i.e., psychic or higher.) Thus, magic, myth, and reason can be (and often are) legitimate religions, and they can occasionally express authentic religious insight via peak experience. But in neither case are they the source of authentic religious insight, which, for me, is always and expressly transrational, not merely ration, and certainly not prerational.
Notice that, in very general terms, any religion (or world view) can be judged in its degree of validity on two different, independently variable scales: its degree of legitimacy (horizontal scale; degree of translative smoothness and integrity, measured against the potential capacity of the given level itself) and its degree of authenticity (vertical scale; degree of transformative power, measured by the degree of hierarchical structuralization delivered by the transformation.) Thus, for example, there are situation where magic, at its full potential (say, in some paleolithic societies) was just as legitimate as myth at its full potential (say, in some bronze age societies), but myth was more authentic (embodying a higher level of structural organization. If our scale of legitimacy is 1 to 10 (degree of using the integrative-mana potential of the given level) and our scale of authenticity is 1 to 10 (representing the ten levels of structuralization), then in that example, the ratings would be (10,4) and (10,5), respectively. Here are some other examples, more commonplace:
Chinese Maoism has (or rather had) a fairly high degree of legitimacy but had a very mediocre degree of authenticity. It was a legitimate religions (or worldview) in that it apparently integrated large blocks of peoples, provided social solidarity and a measure of meaning-value, and avoided a good deal of taboo by providing the immortality ideology of an unending, never-dying people's revolution (a legitimacy rating of, say, 8-9.) It was not very authentic, however, because it offered adaptation to, only God. Thus: Maoism (8-9, 5-6.) (Notice that today Maoism has lost some of its legitimacy in China; the cultural revolution and its subsequent events were exactly a legitimacy crisis as defined above.) Soveit Marxism/Leninism, on the other hand, is as inauthentic as was Maoism (5-6), for the same reasons (it does not produce psychic, subtle, or causal transformation), but it also appears to be of a much lower degree of legitimacy (say, 4-5) than Maoism in its heyday, because its mana and its immortality symbols apparently have to be backed by rather large sticks. So there we have examples of relatively legitimate/inauthentic (8-9, 5-6) and illegitimate/inauthentic (4-5, 5-6.)
As for authentic but illegitimate, examples abound. When Mahayana Buddhism died in India, it was not because its tenets were per se inauthentic, for they still embodied causal level practice (9-10), but because Vedanta Hinduism, regenerating itself via Shankara and claiming a more historical rootedness, became more legitimate with practitioners. Likewise, Vedanta is a perfectly causal-authentic religion, but it seems it will never achieve widespread legitimacy in America, its rating there thus being something like (1-2, 9-10.) In the West, in fact, most esoteric spiritual tenets, no matter how authentic, never gained much legitimacy (witness Eckhart, al-Hallaj, Giordano Bruno, Christ's esoteric-causal message itself.)
As for religions that have been both legitimate and authentic, we may take Ch'an Buddhism during T'and Chinda, Vedanta Hinduism in India from the time of Gaudapada and Shankara to the British intensified occupation, or Vajrayana in Tibet from Padmasambhava to Mao Tse-tung, all of which seemed somewhere around (8-9, 9-10.)
Each of the preceding nine (or more) usages of the word "religion" has its appropriate place-some "religious" expressions are fixation/regressions, some are immortality projects, some are mana generators, some are legitimate, some are authentic. But we must be careful to express precisely which usage we mean. Otherwise, statements such as "The religious impulse in universal," "All religions are true," "Religion is transcendental," "All religions are one at some deep level," and so on are at best strictly meaningless, at worst profoundly misleading.
The tenth definition that I've come across that I learned was from my teacher, Sokuzan. Religion=discipline.
I am sure that there are many, many more definitions behind the word religion. The basic point? Religion is an extremely confused topic in todays world because everyone seems to have a lot to say about it (or if they don't say it, they think it) without really understanding that people mean entirely different things that are completely legitimate based on where you are in life.
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